1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a voice book device for reproducing the contents of a book including sentences and background music, and more particularly to a voice book device, in which each page of a voice book is comprised of a transparent part with one optical reflector and a contents part, thereby eliminating needs for through holes and magnets formed in the voice book.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, both pictures and sentences appear on each page of a conventional children's book, so a child associates a picture with a sentence and a parent reads the sentences to him, thereby allowing the child to study language. The conventional children's book is disadvantageous in that a person such as a parent must read the book for a child. In order to overcome such a disadvantage of the conventional children's book, voice books and output devices have been developed. However, conventional voice books and their output devices provide only a simple function of outputting the cry of an animal when a user pushes the animal on a voice book. Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. Hei2-62464 published on May 10, 1990 discloses a voice book output device that recognizes a corresponding page of a voice book using a bar code reader and plays the voice recording of corresponding sentences. However, it is difficult for a child having low cognitive ability to use the bar code reader. Additionally, Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 96-38427 published on Dec. 18, 1996 discloses an apparatus in which a plurality of dots are formed on each page of a voice book and a page is recognized by sensing a corresponding dot with a handset having an optical sensor. Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 96-38427 has the same problem as Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. Hei2-62464.
Accordingly, there have been developed voice book devices that can automatically recognize their pages without requiring any operation by a child and output the contents of corresponding pages of the books as voice. Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 1999-21943 published on Jun. 25, 1999 discloses a voice book and output device, in which through holes are formed on the pages of a voice book and optical sensors are mounted on a book support at positions corresponding to the positions of the through holes, and a page recognizing device in which contact switches are mounted on the pages of a voice book and pages are recognized by the on/off operation of a contact switch carried out by the pressure of pages. For the voice book and output device using optical sensors, the through holes must be perforated through each page of the voice book and even through holes of a number corresponding to the number of the last page of the voice book must be formed on the last page, so the voice book is damaged and easily torn, thereby degrading the function of the voice book. For the device using contact switches, contact switches must be mounted on each page of a voice book, so there occur problems that the manufacturing cost of the voice book is increased, the contact switches are easily detached from the pages and the pages are not recognized by the non-operation of the contact switches due to lack of pressure.
Korean Utility Model Laid-open No. 20-178292 discloses a device in which magnets are mounted on each page of a voice book, lead switches are disposed in a book support at positions corresponding to the positions of magnets, and pages are recognized by the cooperation of the magnets and lead switches. For this device, the magnets must be mounted on each page of the voice book, so the manufacturing cost of the device is increased, the magnets are easily detached from the pages and the pages are not recognized by errors in cooperative operation between the magnets and lead switches.
In order to solve such problems, Korean Patent No. 10-317984 discloses a device in which magnets are disposed in each page of a voice book and hall sensors are mounted on a book support, thereby automatically recognizing the pages. However, this device also has problems caused by the disposition of magnets in each page of the voice book.